Friday Mornings, Old Men and Coffee

The discussion had been about cannon, particularly, a Civil War cannon a local resident had in their front yard in a neighborhood nearby. After a somewhat heated discussion of the cannon’s technical details, the conversation had reached a lull, but the silence was broken when the former city councilman spoke.

“We saw a cannon in an attic once,” Frank said, rescuing us from our momentary daydreams. 

“Oh, yeah?” I said taking another slurp of coffee.

It was the weekly meeting of out kitchen cabinet. Presidents had cabinets, why not us? There were five of us ranging in age from seventy-one to ninety-three. We have met at our senior member’s house since the unfortunate demise of his Lincoln automobile in a traffic accident. Conversation covered a myriad of topics, some of which were discussed quite intensely. 

The speaker took a drink of his coffee, cleared his throat, and continued, “It was several years ago now when my wife and I volunteered at the Charleston Annual Home Show to be, huh…what do you call it when you show people around?”

“Docent?”

“Tour guide?”

“Tour guides. That’s what we were? We would show people around when they visited the house. We thought we would go early and get a preview of what we were to show people, and maybe we could see the caretaker. The owner of this South Battery house, like quite a few of the others, lived out of town. Actually, he owned several houses,” the retired civil engineer continued his story. 

“When Joe Riley was mayor he sold rich Yankees on the idea they could own a historic antebellum house in Charleston if they would simply restore it. South of Broad Street went from a near slum to a destination for readers of Travel+Leisure  magazine,” I added.

He continued, slightly perturbed by my interruption, “We did arrive early and found the caretaker. He was very helpful and showed us around and described things in that distinct Charleston accent.  It was either a three or four story house. I don’t remember. It was years ago. I don’t remember if it was the top floor or the attic. But it was probably the top floor since most of the houses near White Point Gardens have relatively flat roofs… It was the top floor. I remember now, because the caretaker unlocked the door to enter a small room. It was obviously not lived-in and probably used for storage. The object in the middle of the room immediately caught my eye.” The speaker paused, took a bite of the pumpkin bread in front of him and followed it with a gulp of coffee. He deftly brushed the crumbs from the corners of his mouth before continuing. 

“Right in the middle of the room was a cannon. Just the barrel, mind you. It must have been seven or eight feet long. I couldn’t believe it. It must have weighed half a ton. I couldn’t imagine why anyone would have a cannon in their house. How would they have gotten it up the stairs?” the former member of the Army Corps of Engineers continued.

“How did they get it up the stairs?” our host wanted to know.

“What about the stairs?” the retired lineman from Boston asked. Occasionally Louie did not hear everything that was said, particularly when the battery was dying in his hearing aid. 

“They didn’t carry the cannon up the stairs,”.  Frank took a deep breath. He let it out slowly.  He took another sip of his coffee, then held the styrofoam cup up indicating to me that he need it refilled.

“Whaddya mean?” Roy, the most rotund of the older men, asked.

“Just a minute! Let Joe get back to the table with my coffee,” Frank said, forking another piece of the pumpkin bread. 

I returned to the table with a steaming cup of coffee for Frank. Frank took a swallow of the steaming hot coffee without flinching. 

“Thanks, Joe. No, it came through the roof!” the engineer said smacking, the table with his hand. 

“Through the roof?” The three said in unison. 

“I think it was about 1865 when Union forces were occupying Charleston. The Confederates by that time were pretty thoroughly beaten, but they were intent on sabotaging all cannons to insure that the North couldn’t use them.  It’s what is known as spiking. You fill the cannon with gunpowder to blow it apart. But, in the case of this cannon, something went wrong. The cannon was blown up in the air and fell through the roof of the house. It’s been there ever since.”

“Well, my Confederate ancestors were successful in one way,” I said.

“How’s that?” Frank wanted to know. 

I kind of smiled and said, “He did keep the Yankees from using that cannon!”

And then the conversation turned to local politics. 

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photo courtesy of Google Maps

The recent publicity about the mass shootings prompted me to write this post. 

We were riding across a field having checked out my brother-in-law's deer feeder. He had been having trouble with raccoons stealing deer corn. 

"You take any deer with your Henry this year?" I asked.  I knew he had just traded his old Marlin lever action in on the Henry lever action rifle.

"I got two," he said with a grin as the Gator hit another bump. I had my hand on the grab bar as the little ATV carried us back to house he had personally designed for himself and my sister. 

"Got one of those assault rifles?" I asked thinking of the recent shootings in El Paso and Dayton. 

"No-o-o! Carried a M-16 in Nam. That was the last time I had one of those assault rifles. My Henry does everything I need in a  rifle.  I don't know why anybody would want one, but lotta guys buy 'em." 

I too am a veteran of the Vietnam War and qualified with a M-16 too. I grew up on a farm and have never owned a rifle though. Daddy always said they were too dangerous. He said the bullets went too far. I did have a shotgun when I was eight years old though. As I gave more thought to recent events I decided to research gun ownership a bit further.

Are there more mass shootings than ever before? The answer to this question depends on the definition of mass shooting. there are several definitions. Most data indicate there is not an increase.  However, in today's print and electronic purveyors of news you would think so. The media tends to overly report these events. The competition among media outlets is such that the truth sometimes becomes irrelevant. We must always remember that news media are profit making identities. Therefore  I have sought to get most of my data from government agencies. 

I continued to interview people. I decided that I would talk to friends of mine who were gun owners. And I would talk to some folks that didn't own guns. Let me say that the guys I talked with were not old guys like me. Some responded quickly with, " Why do we need regulation anyway? Criminals will always have guns! Why shouldn't I have a gun to protect myself and what if the government tries to take my stuff!" 

I was talking to a young man on the west coast.  I was curious about why he owned a AR-15. For protection he said.  “But what about the police force?” I asked.

He responded with, “Do you know how many times an assailant can shoot me by the time the cops would get to me?” I had to admit I did not have an answer. 

Then I asked,“ What about thirty round capacity magazines? Wouldn’t a ten round magazine reduce the firepower of the mass shooters?”

“And it would also reduce my ability to defend myself. While I’m changing magazines I could be shot!”

I talked with another friend on the West Coast who was a member of a club who joined to gather to manufacture their own M-16 receivers. The receiver is the part of the gun which determines the action in his case a fully automatic M-16.  Since such receivers would have no serial numbers they would be untraceable. I asked why. He said, “ It’s all about the Second Amendment which gives me the right to hold and bear arms. If the government becomes too powerful and infringes on my individual rights, I can defend myself. I’m investing in bullets and beans. I’ve got survival foods and converted some of my assets to gold. I am ready for the next revolution.”

I did find a couple of people that agreed that smaller magazines was probably be a good idea. Most agree with better background checks but the hard core said we had too much checking now.  Everyone agreed that mentally unstable and convicted felons should not allowed to buy  guns.  

During this time I viewed Ben Shapiro’s interview Piers Morgan. Morgan of course believes that the government should confiscate the public’s guns. He cites examples in the UK where this has been done with marked decrease in gun crime. However, there was a marked increase in knife crime.  Another note on a Piers Morgan interview while he was employed by CNN.  After the Sandy Hook School shooting Morgan was interviewing various celebrities. With filmmaker Michael Moore at his side he called the actor, L.L. Cool J, on the west coast for his reaction.  The star of NCIS Las Angeles was quick to say he was a gun owner in case he needed to protect himself from an oppressive government. The surprised Morgan had no comment. 

• What’s my idea after my research. Well my opinion hasn’t changed much. 
• I think extensive background checks are a good idea. 
• A waiting time for the delivery of the gun to a customer should be in days or months rather than hours. 
• I think limiting magazine size to ten rounds is a good idea although when I was younger a .22 caliber semi-automatic held 22 cartridges in a tubular magazine. 
• Reducing the possibility of the mentally deranged obtaining guns is good idea. Once the mentally handicapped were incarcerated and kept away from the public.  But then it was decided that this was inhumane and many less severe 
• cases were released and allowed to self medicate. 
• Magazine size on so-called assault shotguns should be reduced also. There should be some mandatory gun operation and safety instruction at the point of purchase. 

My observations:  Are assault rifles with high capacity magazines the problem? I don’t think so. In 1966 Charles Whitman killed 14 people shooting from the tower on the University of Texas campus with a deer rifle. Timothy McVeigh killed 168 people with a bomb in Oklahoma city. 

Gun laws are for people who obey the law. Criminals will always have guns. Government is not the solution. Look what they’ve done with rail passenger service, mail service, veterans medical care, and education. There are no success stories here. Until the people in Washington really care about the people they represent nothing will change.

I Thought I Heard the Angels Cry

It was one of those days in late August. It was hot and it had not rained in a month. The crops in the fields were withered and dying. School would be starting soon and I was glad. Living on a farm two miles from the nearest neighbor meant I had no one to play with during summer vacation. That meant I could only play with my younger sister. A boy can’t have a lot of fun playing with his sister. Yes, I would be happy when school started. I liked school, not just recess. We learned interesting things about foreign countries and did science experiments. And once a month the bookmobile came. I liked books about famous men, presidents, inventors, and others. You could check out magazines too. Popular Mechanics was one of my favorites.

On this particular day I was riding my bike in the front of the house when I saw someone coming toward the house on that red dirt road. There were two figures on bicycles. As they got closer I could tell it was two boys from school. I quickly hid my bicycle behind the house. You see, my bicycle was a 26 inch girl’s model. Daddy had gotten it from Uncle Jake when his daughters no longer wanted it. Daddy really did not have the money to buy me a new one but he painted up the old one to look like a new one. But it was a girl’s bike. When you are a ten-year-old boy, you don’t want to be seen riding a girl’s bike. The boys coming up the road would never know I had a girl’s bike.

As they got closer I recognized the bike riders. Two boys from school, one was a year older and one a year younger than me. I did not care for them that much, but anyone to play with was better than my sister. They were the rich boys at school. Their father, Mr. Beaufort MacDonald, owned a lumber company.  His company turned trees into lumber from which people built houses, barns, and stores. They wore Wrangler western jeans. The other boys like me wore Red Camel jeans. That’s what the sons of farmers and factory workers wore.They were closer now. I could tell they were riding their new English touring bicycles they had received for Christmas. They had skinny tires and three speed gears. And hand brakes too. They were beautiful machines. They lay the beautiful machines under the front yard. The bikes had no kickstands. 

Frank spoke, “Hey, Tony, I told Joe we should ride over to see you.”

“It was quite a ride. The new bikes are great, fast and easy to pedal. You should get your Dad to get you one,” Joe said. It was a joke that was not funny. He knew boys whose fathers farmed or worked in factories couldn’t buy their sons expensive bicycles. 

“Maybe,” I said, trying to put up a big front. 

Frank, the older and bigger of the two, spoke next, “Tony, why don’t you show us that guitar of yours. You’ve told us all about it at school but we’ve never seen it. Come on! Let’s see it!”

“ Allright,” I said. At least they wouldn’t be bragging about the bicycles.

I ducked into the house and grabbed my guitar. 

“Got company, huh!” Momma said as I was walking through the semi-darkness of the living room. We didn’t turn on any lights during the day.  It saved on the electric bill and with the windows and the doors open there was enough light inside. 

“Yes, Ma’am, boys from school,” I answered without breaking my stride.  

I went down the front steps two at the time to rejoin Frank and Joe under the big oak tree. I was beaming. 

It had taken a lot of work to earn that guitar. About six months ago I was visiting my cousins in a nearby town when I saw this ad on the back of a Blackhawk comic book. The ad read: “Kids make money or earn great prizes selling seeds from the Great American Seed Company”. One of the prizes pictured was a guitar. I had always wanted a guitar. I had seen Gene Autry and Roy Rogers play guitars in the movies. It took me about three months to sell enough seed to earn a guitar. It wasn’t easy selling seeds to farmers. But I did it! I loved that guitar. It had pictures of cowboys and Indians on it and came with a song book  and instructions. Soon I was 

“Let me hold it, “ Frank said. 

He turned to his brother and showed it to him. And then they burst into laughter as they looked at me!

I was in shock. I was speechless. Why were they laughing, I thought.

“This is not a real guitar,” Joe said, “ This thing is made of cardboard, real guitars are made of wood!”

I had never seen a real guitar. I had only seen them in the movies I attended with my grandmother. I wrenched the guitar from Joe’s hands and ran toward the house. I felt my face turn red and I could feel tears forming in my eyes. But I stopped in my tracks when I heard a deep baritone voice behind me. 

“What’s wrong, Master Tony? Is dem boys bothin you?”

It was Old Theo. I had been so busy with Frank and Joe and had not heard Old Theo approach. He stopped his horse and cart on the red dirt road in front of the house. Old Theo was only fifty feet from our front porch. He was a big man, topped by the passage of time, but his shoulders were broad and the sleeves of his faded chambray almost burst when he flexed his arms. I turned and walked toward the man stepping down from the horse drawn cart. 

 “Yessir, Nossir! These boys are making fun of my guitar,” I said.

I heard Joe say to Frank, “ Did you hear him say ‘sir’ to a colored man?”

My folks always told me to respect my elders. They never told me what color they had to be. Old Theo walked toward me. His beard and tufts of hair peeking out from under a battered felt fedora was white as cotton.His skin was ebony and glistened in the sun. A big grin emerged from the shade provided by the brim of a battered felt hat. There was something about him seemed to have descended from royalty in that far off dark continent we had studied about in geography class at school.  

“Lemme see dat git-tar, Master Tony,” Old Theo said. 

He took the guitar from me and walked over and sat down on the stump of a big oak tree that Momma had cut down. The hard packed clay around the stump was swept clean. He adjusted the tuning keys on the guitar a bit and reached into his pocket and brought a piece of a bottleneck and slipped it over the middle finger of his left hand. My guitar was dwarfed in his  huge hands. His eyes were closed as he began to play. 

And then he started to play. I had never heard any music like he played. I looked back toward the house and saw my mother behind the screen door with my new baby brother in her arms. She was wearing a the new feed sack dress she had just finished making. I had helped Daddy pick out that particular bag of hog feed down at the hardware store. I could see old Aunt Cindy in the shadows beside her. She was helping out Momma with the new baby. Couldn’t see much of her in the dark, except the whites of her eyes. I heard her tell Momma. 

“Dat music is da blues…it makes me wanna cry!”

She was right. It was the saddest music I had ever heard. I’m sure the angels in heaven were crying. 

That was long ago. Old Theo has been dead and buried for many years. My brother has grandchildren and lives in Michigan. And I never learned to play the guitar. But, I will always remember the day… I thought I heard the angels cry.

Gypsies

My grandmother was a loving person except for the few she hated.I spent quite a bit of time with my grandmother before I had my fifth  birthday. She was always referred to as “Ma” since she considered herself too young to be a grandmother at my birth. I was the first grandchild. She and my grandfather, “Pa”, lived on a farm. Born in ‘98, 1898, I considered her the last pioneer woman. 

Days were long in the summers I remember. She would read the comics to me from the newspaper. Ma was a fan of Red Ryder and other western comic strips. I knew what to expect when I saw the rural mail carrier’s battered Jeep at the mailbox. After reading the comics, I would take a nap on her big front porch. Sometimes peddlers would stop by the farmhouse in their rattling pick-up trucks. Ma would sometimes buy something. Maybe a bottle of vanilla extract for baking. The iceman would come and put a big block of ice in the icebox. Ma and Pa did not have electricity. But they did get electrical service in the late 1940s. If Ma did not want to deal with a peddler we would hide and pretend no one was home. Pa would be away working at the cotton mill. He would walk a mile every day to catch the mill bus to take him to his job. Like I said, Ma liked almost everybody, but not the gypsies. When they drove up in their old pick-up trucks, there always seemed to be at least two, Ma would hide me and grab Pa’s shotgun.  She usually hid me under a bed. You can get into small places when you’re only three feet tall! The dust bunnies would make me sneeze. The gypsies would spend little time with a “pioneer” woman holding a shotgun! She said she hated gypsies because they would steal babies and young children. 

Later when I went to school I read a bit about gypsies. It seems that all over the world. In the British Isles they are known as “travelers”. I had only had one occasion to meet some gypsies. Never did I find a reference that they stole children. I started to believe that Ma just told me that to get me out of her hair. After all, she did tell me that the great hoot owl would get me if I did not go to sleep at bedtime!

While in Spain we had an opportunity to visit the city of Granada. The city is famous for many things including the Moorish fortress, Alhambra, and the final resting place of Isabella and Ferdinand. Isabella and Ferdinand were the monarchs responsible for uniting Spain in 1492. Perhaps, they are better known to Americans as the financiers of a certain Italian sea captain’s discoveries. While in Grenada we visited the tomb of these Spanish monarchs. At the entrance were many gypsy women selling sprigs of rosemary. According to them it was a good luck charm. If you did not buy, they would put a curse on you. I don’t recall exactly what I did, but I probably spent a few euros to get them out of my face. I did not get a chance to find out if they still stole children. But later I would hear of the gypsies’ children stealing habits. 

A few years ago, after exercising at the gym, I was having coffee with friends when the subject of gypsies came up.  It was a diverse group of men and women, well seasoned adults. I was probably the one who brought up the subject of baby stealing gypsies. Nobody had heard of such a thing except one lady and the one who brought the subject up. She was rather height challenged and spoke with an accent only common to the southernmost part of our great country. Calmly she told us that as a little girl she had been stolen by gypsies in Mississippi. She was living with her family on what had been an old plantation when the gypsies came. Her mother had told her to stay out of sight while she dealt with the gypsies. But while her mother was talking to the gypsies at the front door, one crept on the back door and grabbed her. Her brother, who was almost eighteen years old saw what happened and chased the gypsy down and pried her from the kidnappers hands! She said she remembered it like it happened yesterday. She even remembered she was wearing a blue dress!

Ma was right. Gypsies did steal children. After sixty years I felt I had proven her right.

Toxic Masculinity and Me

​What iis masculinity? According to the dictionary...

masculinity noun

mas·​cu·​lin·​i·​ty | \ ˌma-skyə-ˈli-nə-tē  \

Definition of masculinity

: the quality or nature of the male sex : the quality, state, or degree of being masculine or manly

There are many characteristics of masculinity such as:

1. strength 

2. courage 

3. independence 

4. leadership 

5. aggression

For me, masculinity was best seen in my favorite television and celluloid leading men. These were men with courage. Men who would take a chance and never gave up. They were tough and strong and were not emotional. Independent.  They were leaders. These men always sought to be the best at what they were. And, invariably, spoke with a baritone voice and got the girl. Perhaps, characters played by the actor, Gary Cooper, best displays this type of masculinity. But then I'm a fan of western films. Oh, yes, the girl part… just the inherent  biological drive to reproduce. 

Where does this masculinity come from? There are two schools of thought on this. And of course the social scientists have their data to verify their opinions. Masculinity is a product of environment or culture some would have us believe. Tribal customs or the modern demand to  “ be a man” create this masculinity or manliness. In other words, develop those characteristics identified with masculinity. Another, and contrasting school of thought, is that these characteristics are inherent in a man’s DNA or biology. He is born with masculine traits.

Perhaps, reality is a little of both.  

There are a number of definitions of toxic masculinity. This is but one. 

Toxic masculinity is when some of these masculine characteristics are emphasized or are out of control. For example when man’s natural aggression is greater than it needs to be. The schoolyard bully comes to mind. He feels that to live up to expectation he must be the king of the hill, the baddest of the bad. It is the degree of aggression which determines what is or is not considered toxic aggression. One could argue that toxic masculinity is not always bad. Indeed, sometimes it is rewarded. For example recipients of our nation’s highest military honor, the Medal of Honor, is frequently awarded to those exhibiting what some would call excessive aggression. Toxic masculinity?

Occasionally, a defense of masculinity comes from surprising people. Note this item from the Guardian. 

Meryl Streep has criticized the phrase ”toxic masculinity”, saying it is offensive to men. “We hurt our boys by calling something toxic masculinity,” she said. 

• There is a movement in education today spurred by social scientists to modify the behavior of boys to become a “kinder,  gentler” sort. No playground fights. Groupthink is encouraged as opposed to reliance on individual decisions.  Boys are also encouraged to show their emotions. No longer are we allowed to say “boys will be boys”.

This seems to me to blur the line between the sexes. A more homogenous group of people. I am not an advocate of toxic masculinity if indeed it does exist. I suppose my real problem is that if our boys are no longer boys, what are they? And who will become the warriors  to protect our freedoms and who will dash into burning  buildings to rescue our children or arrest a rapist?